How to go from poor pupil to star student in 32 hours or less

From “C” student to “A” student.

What a difference a single letter can make in a child’s life.

Take Alvy (not his real name): a bright third-grade kid who had trouble with math, he received a 79 on his final report card. His parents enrolled him in Tutoring Club during the summer. He attended every day, and by the end of fourth grade, he switched that 79 around to a 97.

At the Tutoring Club, instructors know that being stuck with Cs (or 3s instead of 1s) on your report card can block your future. It’s a stumbling block, but one that motivation and preparation can overcome.

Since it began 25 years ago, Tutoring Club has been turning grades around, but more than that, its unique tutor-child relationship helps kids learn that they can learn. It’s a promise, in fact.

“We can bring your child one academic level higher in just 32 hours,” assures Inday Mallari, Tutoring Club president. “We guarantee reaching a goal in a finite number of hours — 32 or less.” At a special open house event outside their offices at Bonifacio High Street, kids and adults were invited to play games, get their faces painted — and sign up for Tutoring Club sessions.

How do you know if your child needs tutoring?

“They first have to take a base test to see where they’re behind, what skills they need,” says Nick Locsin, local franchiser of Tutoring Club. He has 50 students at the High Street branch and another branch operating in Greenhills. It’s a skills-based system where “the tutor is just an interpreter, a motivator. The program is all in the computer, not like other tutoring programs that are de kahon, that offer the same solution to different problems.”

In other words, each child is allowed to advance at his/her own level, understanding the problems before advancing. And in today’s fast-paced classroom environments, that sort of individual attention is often lacking.

“The difference is that each child takes his own path,” explains Mallari. “We offer individualized programs for each child. One tutor only takes on three students and they do the work sheets there, not at home, so the tutor can provide immediate intervention.”

Tutoring sessions are scheduled at least twice a week.

But there’s more. This is a “club,” after all: Goals and achievements are tied to payoffs and fun activities. “It’s not an extension of the classroom,” Mallari continues. “We make learning fun with a rewards system so students can generate more tokens. We have a student store for toys and prizes (even cash, for older kids). Being a club, we want it to be fun.”

There are a lot of tutorial centers out there, notes Mallari, but Tutoring Club is a class above all the rest. “We focus on the basic skills of children. The tutors handle skills, not classroom concepts.”

Founded in the US, Tutoring Club is now in four countries, with over 250 franchises. In fact, Entrepreneur magazine recently ranked Tutoring Club as one of the top 150 franchises in the US.

Founder Larry Schwartz knows how hard it is to find the right motivation for kids: When his son was 10 or 11, he started having problems in school that turned into a discipline problem. So Schwartz brought him to Reading Game (now Tutoring Club’s competitor in the US). “After a couple of months, his attitude changed: It was ‘Daddy, I’m going to do better in school.’”

So Schwartz sold his business and spent years — the longest in the industry — developing his own tutoring modules and writing computer programs.  “It was an opportunity to do backdoor coaching,” says this former college football player. He based the teaching techniques on coaching skills. “You start with the basics and build, move on to bigger and better skills. It’s a step process. In class, if you miss a concept, like in math, the train goes on. So why try? We don’t waste time on what the kid already knows.”

Schwartz says Tutoring Club can fix a reading problem in 96 hours, after only two weeks in school. “If we come up short, the extra sessions are free of charge,” he adds. Typically, the reading level goes up for 93 percent of students.

Now, Schwartz’s kids are doing the franchising. The family has four centers in Silicon Valley. “I’m still writing programs,” continues Schwartz. “For most parents, it’s easier to just do the homework for the kid. My philosophy is to give a child plenty of time; he doesn’t have to keep up. A child can relax and think about the problem. We give him a chance to learn in a relaxed atmosphere. Our intention is not to keep a student forever, like a business. The real key to success is education.”

It also helps to have a 12-year plan. Computer programs are designed for all levels of learning.

And it’s a team approach: “We purposely rotate the kids through six tutors every time because each tutor has a different way of explaining, different insights. The input from a team is much better.”

The love for children is also there. Schwartz says Tutoring Club can even help those kids labeled as dyslexic, with ADD, ADHD or other learning disabilities to be better students. “Every child can learn, in the proper order and with enough time and care.” The program is designed with learning disabilities in mind, with six short assignments per hour.

In the US, Schwartz says Tutoring Club learned a lot from Asian students, who often needed tutors — not because they were dumb, but because the learning environment was so different. This insight helped Schwartz remove any stigma from the “tutoring” label, so they could offer kids the skills they needed. “We’re here to cure the problem, not put a Band-Aid on, but to sew it up so it heals.”

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Tutoring Club is located at B-5, 2nd floor, Bonifacio High Street, Global City (856-2517); and Madison St., Greenhills, San Juan (721-8867). Or visit www.TutoringClub.com.